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Building Simulation 2018, 11(1): 193-202 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-017-0388-6
Research Article | Issue | Published: 10 July 2017

Air infiltration induced inter-unit dispersion and infectious risk assessment in a high-rise residential building

Show Author's Information Yan Wu1,  Jianlei Niu2( ),  Xiaoping Liu3
Department of Building Services Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China
Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, The University of Sydney, Australia
School of Civil Engineering, HeFei University of Technology, China
Keywords:
air infiltration, inter-unit dispersion, infectious risk assessment, multi-zone modeling, wind tunnel experiment
Cite this article:
Wu Y, Niu J, Liu X. Air infiltration induced inter-unit dispersion and infectious risk assessment in a high-rise residential building. Building Simulation, 2018, 11(1): 193-202. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-017-0388-6
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Abstract Full text About this article

Identifying possible airborne transmission routes and assessing the associated infectious risks are essential for implementing effective control measures. This study focuses on the infiltration-induced inter-unit pollutant dispersion in a high-rise residential (HRR) building. The outdoor wind pressure distribution on the building facades was obtained from the wind tunnel experiments. And the inter-household infiltration and tracer gas transmission were simulated using multi-zone model. The risk levels along building height and under different wind directions were examined, and influence of component leakage area was analysed. It is found that, the cross-infection risk can be over 20% because of the low air infiltration rate below 0.7 ACH, which is significantly higher than the risk of 9% obtained in our previous on-site measurement with air change rate over 3 ACH. As the air infiltration rate increases along building height, cross-infection risk is generally higher on the lower floors. The effect of wind direction on inter-unit dispersion level is significant, and the presence of a contaminant source in the windward side results in the highest cross-infection risks in other adjacent units on the same floor. Properly improving internal components tightness and increasing air change via external components are beneficial to the control of internal inter-unit transmission induced by infiltration. However, this approach may increase the cross-infection via the external transmission, and effective control measures should be further explored considering multiple transmission routes.


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About this article

Air infiltration induced inter-unit dispersion and infectious risk assessment in a high-rise residential building

Show Author's information Yan Wu1, Jianlei Niu2( ), Xiaoping Liu3
Department of Building Services Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China
Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, The University of Sydney, Australia
School of Civil Engineering, HeFei University of Technology, China

Abstract

Identifying possible airborne transmission routes and assessing the associated infectious risks are essential for implementing effective control measures. This study focuses on the infiltration-induced inter-unit pollutant dispersion in a high-rise residential (HRR) building. The outdoor wind pressure distribution on the building facades was obtained from the wind tunnel experiments. And the inter-household infiltration and tracer gas transmission were simulated using multi-zone model. The risk levels along building height and under different wind directions were examined, and influence of component leakage area was analysed. It is found that, the cross-infection risk can be over 20% because of the low air infiltration rate below 0.7 ACH, which is significantly higher than the risk of 9% obtained in our previous on-site measurement with air change rate over 3 ACH. As the air infiltration rate increases along building height, cross-infection risk is generally higher on the lower floors. The effect of wind direction on inter-unit dispersion level is significant, and the presence of a contaminant source in the windward side results in the highest cross-infection risks in other adjacent units on the same floor. Properly improving internal components tightness and increasing air change via external components are beneficial to the control of internal inter-unit transmission induced by infiltration. However, this approach may increase the cross-infection via the external transmission, and effective control measures should be further explored considering multiple transmission routes.

Keywords: air infiltration, inter-unit dispersion, infectious risk assessment, multi-zone modeling, wind tunnel experiment

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Publication history
Copyright
Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 22 March 2017
Revised: 24 May 2017
Accepted: 05 June 2017
Published: 10 July 2017
Issue date: February 2018

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2017

Acknowledgements

The research is financially funded by Health and Medical Research Fund, Hong Kong SAR Government, with the project reference no.13121442.

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